The POLITICO (football) 24

Footballers from 24 nations are on display in France at Euro 2016. At 23 players per squad, that’s a whopping 552 sweaty bodies — almost as many as the French Assemblée Nationale can muster on a day when there’s coq au vin for lunch.

Only a fanatical few football-watchers could possibly exceed a passing knowledge of more than 10 percent of that total; and the fans’ truest familiarity is always with players from their own land. As a guide to smart watching, POLITICO has curated a list of 24 players to keep an eye on, one from each team playing in the championship, which starts Friday.

This is a list that mostly seeks to help you escape the obvious. Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo is not on it, even though he’s the biggest star (and second-biggest ego) of the occasion. Nor is Wayne Rooney, England’s indelicate talisman; or Poland’s Robert Lewandowski, or Germany’s Thomas Müller.

The aim of this exercise is to avoid the glaringly obvious — except where it would be a travesty to do so. Some teams are so reliant on a single star that failing to name him on this list would just be an act of unhelpful contrariness. Hence our picks for Sweden and Wales, both one-man teams reliant on titans. Mostly, however, our aim is to push past the cliché, and draw attention to players that we hope you won’t ignore …

Albania — Taulant Xhaka

Taulant Xhaka | Gent Shkullaku/AFP via Getty Images

A bustling defender who’s only the second-best player in his own family, Taulant is the older brother of Granit, midfield star for Switzerland. He’s much shorter than his younger sibling, and vastly less well known. That could change when Albania plays its first game on June 11 — against Switzerland.

Austria — David Alaba

David Alaba | Christian Hofer/Getty Images

Immensely versatile, Alaba is just as happy in defense (for Bayern Munich) as he is in midfield (for Austria). We reckon he’s the best left-back in the world, but Austria needs more of him up front (and has the doughty Christian Fuchs at the back). An Afro-Filipino by origin, he’s quick, powerful, and a delight on the ball. It’s no wonder Pep Guardiola, his erstwhile Bayern manager, wants to take Alaba with him to Manchester City.

Belgium — Eden Hazard

Eden Hazard | Claudio Villa/Getty Images

It’s torture to have to pick one name from a squad as richly talented as Belgium’s, but this could be Hazard’s tournament. The Chelsea midfielder — one of those players who performs better for country than he does for club — is looking to pull off a big-money move to Real Madrid or Paris Saint-Germain. He will want to sizzle. Belgium expects. Will Hazard deliver?

Croatia — Luka Modrić

Luka Modric | Dennis Grombkowski/Getty Images

The most sublimely cerebral midfielder in world football, Modrić is the quiet pillar of a Real Madrid side that finished its season strongly, winning the Champions League and almost snatching La Liga from Barcelona. Is he the finest player Croatia has ever produced? We’d say so. Small of frame and tireless, his feeding of a forward line is one of the pleasures of the contemporary game.

Czech Republic — Petr Čech

Petr Cech | Guillaume Souvant/AFP via Getty Images

In a squad that is out of its league in a group with Croatia, Spain, and Turkey, Čech — his team’s No. 1 goalkeeper for 14 straight years — will need to be at his best to keep the Czechs afloat. In a tournament teeming with outstanding ‘keepers, his is a name that sits alongside the very best. He plays with a helmet, owing to brain surgery nine years ago.

England — Marcus Rashford

Marcus Rashford | Dan Mullan/Getty Images

England has its most talented pack of forwards in years, and Rashford, only 18, is perhaps the most mouthwatering of them all. Bursting on the scene midway through this last season, Rashford is the youngest player in the tournament. Don’t expect him to start each game, he’s too callow for that. And look out for his free kicks — if he gets a chance. Rooney and Harry Kane are England’s acknowledged dead-ball specialists, but the Rashford Rocket could come to be a thing to remember.

France — N’Golo Kanté

N’Golo Kante, left | Loic Venance/AFP via Getty Images

The unflashy backbone of the French midfield, Kanté is called The Rash at Leicester City — because “he’s everywhere.” Without him, France wouldn’t have the same attacking potency; and in the absence of the excellent Raphaël Varane in defense, Kanté will need to live up to expectations of his omnipresence. In a team bursting with beautiful ball-players, his dignified industriousness will be an important complement.

Germany — Leroy Sané

We’re taking a punt here. This is Germany: well-drilled, efficient, fancied, self-confident. We know the Müllers and the Özils and the Boatengs. But do we know Leroy Sané? Young — only 20 — and as electric as an eel, the pacy winger embodies the new generation of German talent, a majority of whom are from ethnic minorities. By the next World Cup, in Moscow in 2018, the German squad will look very un-Teutonic indeed. Thanks to men like Sané.

Hungary — Gábor Király

Gabor Kiraly | Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

Hungary is one of the dowdier teams at Euro 2016, a far cry from the days of the Magnificent Magyars. But there’s something endearing about Király, who will, at 40, be the oldest player ever to take the field in a European Championship. He also happens to be the worst dressed, with a penchant for playing in the sort of baggy sweat pants one finds worn by shoppers in a Middle American mall.

Iceland — Gylfi Sigurðsson

Gylfi Sigurdsson | Tom Dulat/Getty Images

The best player in the Iceland squad, Sigurðsson has proven his quality in the English Premier League for Swansea City. Proficient in front of goal, he is likely to move to Leicester City next season, to fill the gaps opened up by the departure of players to pastures new (and lucrative). If Iceland are to progress out of the group stage, they’ll need to do so off Sigurðsson’s boot.

Italy — Leonardo Bonucci

Leonardo Bonucci | Getty Images

For all its delicacy as a culture, and its history as a highway for invaders from abroad, Italy is the home of the finest, toughest, most adamantine defenders. The present-day embodiment of this Italian specialty is Bonucci, who’d likely make it to a current World XI. One of the best ball-playing defenders, he’s a hard man with a silken touch. Surrounded at the back by his Juventus teammates, he will ensure Italy’s bastion is among the most impenetrable at Euro 2016.

Northern Ireland — Kyle Lafferty

Lafferty is the most skilled player in a team of — how to put this delicately — scant-hopers. That much overused word, “talisman,” is rightly deployed in his case, as he strives to keep Northern Ireland afloat in a pretty taxing group. Although mercurial, he is the heart of the team. And we’d say soul, too, if religion weren’t such a contentious thing out there.

Poland — Grzegorz Krychowiak

Grzegorz Krychowiak | Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images

Krychowiak is no shrinking violet. An excellent central-defensive midfielder, he’s a terrific passer of the ball who doesn’t shy away from a crunching tackle. The Pole was instrumental in Sevilla’s Europa League triumph this season. How he links up with Lewandowski, especially in the needle game against Germany, could determine how far the team progresses.

Portugal — Renato Sanches

Renato Sanches | Gualter Fatia/Getty Images

With the world’s gaze on Ronaldo, it’s easy to ignore a player of 18. But this kid, Sanches, oozes as much talent — if not more — as Ronaldo did at that age. Only England’s Rashford is younger than Sanches at Euro 2016, and it would be beguiling to compare the progress of these two during the course of the tournament. A child of the once-vast Portuguese Empire, he was born in Lisbon to a dad from São Tomé and Príncipe and a mother from Cape Verde.

Republic of Ireland — Robbie Keane

Robbie Keane | Denis Doyle/Getty Images

The injury-prone Keane may be near-geriatric — at 35 — in football terms, but he remains the side’s captain and driver of morale. Ireland’s all-time leading goal-scorer, he’s likely to be used mostly from the bench by manager Martin O’Neill. Still, there’s nothing more moving for the sentimental fan than a veteran on his last hurrah.

Romania — Florin Andone

Florin Andone | Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

Romania is a team bereft of star power, and Andone, their best player, plies his trade at lowly Cordoba, in the Spanish second division. That said, he has the nous and the skills to shepherd his team in a group which, while competitive, is not the toughest of Euro 2016. Victory over Albania, a draw against Switzerland, and … who knows, the next round beckons.

Russia — Roman Neustädter

We pick this midfielder for sheer exoticism. Neustädter is an ethnic German, born in Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine. He has made one appearance for the German national side, and has also explored playing for Ukraine. But the Russian Football Federation came a-courting, and in May of this year he was picked for Russia’s Euro 2016 squad. (His father, who was born in Kyrgyzstan, where his own Volga German father had been relocated under Stalin, made two appearances for Kazakhstan in 1996.)

Slovakia — Marek Hamšík

Marek Hamsik | John Thys/AFP via Getty Images

Hamšík is probably Slovakia’s greatest ever player, and — against some stiff competition — sports the worst of all the 552 haircuts at Euro 2016: an eye-watering mohawk that glistens under floodlights. He is the tireless engine of Napoli (who will be in the Champions League next season), and is a playmaker on whom Slovakia’s unpromising fortunes rely almost entirely.

Spain — Álvaro Morata

Alvaro Morata | Valerio Pennicino/Getty Images

Morata is a bright spot in an otherwise dire Spanish front line, the result of some eccentric team-picking by manager Vicente del Bosque. Tall, powerful, and pacey, he’s also a lovely dribbler. Still only 23, he should be the spear-tip for Spain at the next two world cups, where, one hopes, he will have better company up front.

Sweden — Zlatan Ibrahimović

Zlatan Ibrahimovic | Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images

The most arrogant player in the world, this Bosnian Swede who plays for Paris Saint-Germain recently declared he does more for France than President François Hollande. Phenomenally powerful and skilled, Ibrahimović is 90 percent of the Swedish team … actually, make that 95 percent. Without him, Sweden, the very definition of a one-man band, would not be at Euro 2016.

Switzerland — Xherdan Shaqiri

Xherdan Shaqiri | Philippe Desmazes/AFP via Getty Images

One of Switzerland’s plethora of ethnic Albanians, the hyper-stocky Shaqiri is a winger of cannoning velocity. Known as the Power Cube because of his low, muscular center of gravity, Shaqiri has thrived at Stoke City in the Premier League after a barren time with Bayern Munich. He has boasted that Switzerland could do what Denmark and Greece did in previous European Championships — pull off an upset and win the whole caboodle.

Turkey — Selçuk İnan

Selcuk Inan playing for Galatasaray | Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images

The Turks really shouldn’t have been at Euro 2016, so badly did they play in the qualifiers. That they are present is thanks to İnan, the leader of the team, who dragged them over the line with a 90th minute free-kick goal against Iceland in their very last game. The longtime Galatasaray captain, he’s the Turkish Modrić, or Sergio Busquets. In other words, the team’s compass.

Ukraine — Yevhen Konoplyanka

Yevhen Konoplyanka | Georgi Licovski/EPA

Another of Sevilla’s Eastern European stalwarts, Konoplyanka, a winger, can torment opposing defenses for 90 minutes with his indefatigable pace. Ukraine’s attack and goal-scoring rely heavily on him. His relatively short height — he’s 5-foot 9 (1.76 meters) — is thought to have discouraged him from seeking his fortunes in the Premier League. But why would he? He’s cherished in Spain.

Wales — Gareth Bale

Gareth Bale | Stu Forster/Getty Images

Bale is the most complete player of the tournament, the best contemporary British football player, and is trapped in a side that has no hope at all of getting out of its group. One should need no further invitation to watch Wales’ three group-stage games: You may not get another chance to savor Bale playing in an international tournament again.